The Modern Women’s Foundation on Monday urged a university in central Taiwan to dismiss one of its faculty who has been convicted of sexually assaulting one of his students, stressing that his kind of academic should be “kicked off campus.”
The women’s group made the appeal as the long-running scandal at National Chi Nan University (NCNU) in Nantou County surfaced.
Lee Wen-chih (李文志), an associate professor at the Department of Public Policy and Administration, was accused by one of his female students of sexual assault in July 2006.
Lee was convicted of sexual assault by a court last month and was sentenced to one year and two months in prison.
However, the chief executive of the women’s foundation, Amy Chang (張錦麗), said the university did not dismiss Lee and only suspended him from his job for six months after the incident became public.
Early last year, he resumed teaching at the university, Chang said.
“Because Lee was only suspended from duties instead of being dismissed, he could return to campus to continue teaching,” Chang said.
“It is really incredible that NCNU only suspended Lee’s duties, which could only deepen the mental trauma of the victim,” Chang said, urging the university to dismiss Lee in the university administration’s upcoming meeting to be held next week.
In response to the criticism, secretary-general of the university Chiang Ta-shu (江大樹) said the school allowed Lee to resume teaching because at that time he had not yet been sentenced, stressing that NCNU had already suspended Lee following the announcement of the sentence last month.
Chiang said the university would re-examine the case and decide whether to dismiss Lee during an administration meeting next week.
Commenting on the incident as one of possibly many cases of sexual assault on campus, Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛), the foundation president and a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, said that “forcing teachers like Lee to leave the campus is fundamental to preventing such cases from happening again and again.”
Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation president Sandy Yeh (葉毓蘭) said that “if the university doesn’t tackle this problem well, teachers like Lee will become common on campuses.”
“We hope that justice still exists ... We also hope that the victim in this case will be the last who has to hide herself and cry alone without help,” Lai said.
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